Chapter 4. Personnel And Distribution

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_ CHAPTER IV. PERSONNEL AND DISTRIBUTION

The Itching Palm is not limited to the serving classes. It is found among public officials, where it is particularized as grafting, and it is found among store buyers, purchasing agents, traveling salesmen and the like, and takes the form of splitting commissions. There are varied manifestations of the disease, but whether the amount of the gratuity is ten cents to a waiter or $10,000 to a captain of police, the practice is the same.

This is a partial list of those affected:

Baggagemen
Barbers
Bartenders
Bath attendants
Bellboys
Bootblacks
Butlers
Cab drivers
Chauffeurs
Charwomen
Coachmen
Cooks
Door men
Elevator men
Garbage men
Guides
Hatboys
Housekeepers
Janitors
Maids
Manicurists
Messengers
Mail carriers
Pullman porters
Rubbish collectors
Steamship stewards
Theater attendants
Waiters

The foregoing list is not offered as a complete roster of those who regularly or occasionally receive tips. Nearly every one can think of additions, and at Christmas the list is extended to include money gifts to policemen, delivery men and numerous others.

THE TIP-TAKING CLASSES

At the last Census, in 1910, there were 38,167,336 persons in the United States, out of a total population of ninety-odd millions, who were engaged in gainful occupations, that is, who worked for specified wages or salaries. Of this number, 3,772,174 persons were engaged in domestic or personal service, or practically ten per cent. of the industrial population.

This means that in round numbers 4,000,000 Americans of both sexes and all ages were engaged in the lines of work specified in the foregoing list, with certain additions as mentioned. These are the citizens who profit by the tipping practice.

Since 1910 the growth in population to one hundred millions, and the steadily widening spread of the tipping practice will increase the beneficiaries of tipping to 5,000,000. An idea of the relative distribution of the total may be obtained from the statistics of fifty leading cities. The numbers represent the tip-taking classes in each city.

 
    CITY              NUMBER
    Albany             8,000
    Atlanta           23,000
    Baltimore         48,000
    Birmingham        16,000
    Boston            61,000
    Bridgeport         5,200
    Buffalo           25,000
    Cambridge          7,500
    Chicago          135,000
    Cincinnati        30,000
    Cleveland         31,000
    Columbus          14,000
    Dayton             6,500
    Denver            17,000
    Detroit           26,000
    Fall River         4,000
    Grand Rapids       5,500
    Indianapolis      19,000
    Jersey City       14,000
    Kansas City       24,000
    Los Angeles       26,000
    Lowell             5,500
    Louisville        23,000
    Memphis           19,000
    Milwaukee         22,000
    Minneapolis       19,000
    Nashville         15,000
    New Haven          9,000
    New Orleans       37,000
    New York         400,000
    Newark            17,000
    Oakland           11,000
    Omaha             10,000
    Paterson           5,000
    Philadelphia     105,000
    Pittsburgh        41,000
    Portland          17,000
    Providence        14,000
    Richmond          15,000
    Rochester         13,000
    St. Louis         56,000
    St. Paul          16,000
    San Francisco     44,000
    Scranton           6,000
    Seattle           19,000
    Spokane            7,000
    Syracuse           9,000
    Toledo             9,500
    Washington        43,000
    Worcester          9,000
 

In all other cities, towns and hamlets there are proportionate quotas to bring the grand total to 5,000,000. Any estimate of the daily tipping tribute for the whole country necessarily is only an approximation, but $600,000 is a conservative figure. At this rate the annual tribute is around $220,000,000.

IN NEW YORK ALONE

Taking New York with its 400,000 persons who profit from tipping, the leading classes of beneficiaries are as follows:

    Barbers        20,000
    Bartenders     12,000
    Bellboys        2,500
    Bootblacks      3,500
    Chauffeurs     12,000
    Janitors       25,000
    Manicurists     4,500
    Messengers      1,500
    Porters        15,000
    Waiters        35,000

The tipping to these and other classes varies both in amount and regularity. Waiters and manicurists in the better-class places receive no pay from their employers and depend entirely upon tips for their compensation. Barbers and chauffeurs are classes which receive wages and supplement them with tips. Sometimes the employer will pay wages and require that all tips be turned in to the house.

It is a common feature of the "Help Wanted" columns to state that the job is desirable to the workers because of "good tips." Thus the employers are fully alert to the economic advantage of tipping, and wherever it is practicable they throw upon their patrons the entire cost of servant hire.

The extent to which employers are exploiting the public is realized vaguely, if at all. The vein of generosity and the fear of violating a social convention can be worked profitably, and they are in league with their employees to make it assay the maximum amount to the patron.

In a restaurant where the employer has thus shifted the cost of waiter hire to the shoulders of the public, the patron who conscientiously objects to tipping has not the slightest chance in the world of a square deal in competition with the patron who pays tribute, although he pays as much for the food.

A waiter, knowing that his compensation depends upon what he can work out of his patron, employs every art to stimulate the tipping propensity, from subtle flattery to out-right bull-dozing. He weaves a spell of obligation around a patron as tangible, if invisible, as the web a spider weaves around a fly. He plays as consciously upon the patron's fear of social usage as the musician in the alcove plays upon his violin.

This is a particularly bad ethical and economic situation from any viewpoint. The patron, getting only one service, pays two persons for it--the employer and the employee. The payment to the employer is fixed, but to the employee it is dependent upon the whim of the patron. To make this situation normal, the patron should pay only once, and this should cover both the cost of the food and the services of the waiter. Theoretically this is the present idea under the common law, but actually the patron is required, through fear of well-defined penalties, to pay twice.

Naturally, if the $200,000,000 or more annually given to those serving the public should be withdrawn suddenly, employers would face the necessity of a radical readjustment of wage systems. In many lines wages would be increased to a normal basis, either at the expense of the employer's profits, or through additional charges to patrons. Before going further into the employer phase of the practice, the economics of tipping in individual instances will be an interesting study. _

Read next: Chapter 5. The Economics Of Tipping

Read previous: Chapter 3. Barbary Pirates

Table of content of Itching Palm, A Study of the Habit of Tipping in America


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